Phosphenes

  I just want to stretch my legs. Mom, Dad, Tommy and I have been in the car for nearly four hours straight now, and I think I’ve exhausted all of the times I’m allowed to ask to go to the bathroom. I’d like to ask again, but judging by the purple bags under Dad’s eyes and his death-grip on the steering wheel, it’s probably best that I keep quiet and sink further into my seat. But my legs ache. And why is the air conditioning on so high? Jesus. I think my feet are turning blue. Dad always insists that we keep it on so high so that it “keeps Mom’s face from melting off.” I’m giggling now, a little too much and a little too loudly because of my numb legs, so Mom turns around to shoot me an irritated look from the passenger seat. 
You would never be able to guess her real age if you hadn’t known her all your life like I have. It’s not that she looks younger than she is, or older -- just confused. You might see her in the city a block away from you, strutting down the sidewalk with a confidence you have never seen before in a woman daring enough to walk her white high heels directly through rain puddles. She’s mesmerizing, really, so you would keep watching her, wondering how it’s possible that her skin looks so elastic and her features so symmetrical. Her glow is utterly blinding, so you will shield your eyes the way you do when the sun is white-hot and high in the sky. As she gets closer, you’ll be eaten up by her own eyes and knocked over by the rosy sillage of her perfume. When she is approaching and getting so close that you can smell the cherry on her lips, you will be down on your back trying to catch your breath. Your lungs will collapse, your chest will convulse, and your palms will be sweaty as you reach a trembling hand up to touch her. She will trounce right over you in her heels wet with rainwater and you will have never been so thankful in your entire life. 
After the last lingering trace of her is gone, you will try to think of the way her lips looked like candy and her eyes looked so inviting but you won’t be able to remember because, while you were down on the ground, up close and personal, you saw her. Really saw her in a way that was only possible when you were being crushed by the sharp points of her shoes. The skin you once thought to be elastic and youthful housed wrinkles around her eyes and the corners of her mouth that she tried so desperately to cover up. Her lips were not as sultry and sweet as they had once looked a block away, but faded and worn like paint peeling from the rotting wood of a fence. And no, her eyes were not soft and caring, but rheumy and desperate. 
So, there you are on the ground. Your pants are soaked through at the knees, but you didn’t notice until she left. Your chin is scuffed by the pavement you so voluntarily fell into, and you are just now noticing the blood dripping down your neck since she has disappeared around the corner of a brick building. Standing now, you wonder if you really would have allowed yourself to die in the face of beauty. You wonder if it would have been worth it after looking into her promising eyes and discovering a sadness that could not be hidden or smoothed over around the creases of her eyelids or the frown of her cherry lips. It’s a question you may never have an answer to because if she were to walk back around that corner, you would not fall down before her, but lay down. Even if only pain, at least she would get you to feel something. You would happily lay in brown water and scrape your face on the pavement again just for her to push the points of her pretty white heels straight into your heart.
Mom really is beautiful, though. Her skin looks like porcelain, her lips are always deep cherry, and her long eyelashes frame her enticing eyes. When she looks at me, I see her, but not the way she wants me to. I don’t see her the way she wants my father and people on the street to see her. Goddess, graceful, glorified. Resilient and faultless. Undeniably, unregrettably, and unforgettably beautiful. Looking at her now through the thick cover of darkness in the car, her face scares me. Her porcelain skin crackles before me like glass being run over by a car on pavement, and the cherry on her lips looks too dark and too perfect. Her eyes should be saying, “Would you cut it out? Tommy is trying to sleep. Can’t you see your brother is trying to sleep?” but they don’t. They just look melty. 
Mom turns back around and I sink further into the seat wishing I could disappear altogether, or at least fall asleep so I could forget the glazed look of her eyes. I have never been able to sleep in cars. Looking at Tommy now, I wonder how anyone is able to. He keeps jolting upright every fifteen minutes or so, and when he does, the seatbelt that is now covering half his chubby young face digs further into his cheek. He keeps whacking his head on the window every time we go over a bump, so his dirty blonde hair looks weirdly matted on the right side. I wish I were asleep like him, but I’ll settle for staring out the window instead. Anything to distract me from her lingering look of melancholy apprehension and something like a quiet cry for help.
The sky is so vastly black tonight. I press my cheek up against the cool black glass of the car window so I can look up at the void where sky should be. The stars and the moon are hiding behind thick blankets of clouds, mockingly playing peek-a-boo with one another. Sometimes, I will watch closely enough to be able to catch a silver wink of the moon or a quick and sparkly kiss of a star, but other than that, the headlights of the car are the only things piercing through tonight’s darkness. It is easy to become lost in the dark. We’ve been on this road trip for three days now. This is something Dad really enjoys doing. Mom always protests, but she’s too afraid to stay in the house by herself when night falls, so she begrudgingly tags along. I think Dad is the only one in this car who actually knows what’s best for the family. He is the glue that binds us even if he doesn’t know it. I look at the shadowy profile of his face while he drives and then back out into the darkness. I wonder if he knows what road we’re on. I wonder if he knows where we’re going.
I’m watching my reflection in the black glass. My face staring back at me looks eerily warped, so I shut my eyes hard. I tell myself I am not afraid of the dark and the emptiness and monsters within it -- that I haven’t been since I was five -- so I force myself to stare back. The infinite darkness of the world makes me feel alone and small, especially when the reflection in the mirror-like glass is distorted to the point where I can hardly recognize my own face, so I try to think of pretty things. I think about cherry lips and soft skin and long eyelashes framing shining eyes that would be able to look straight through all this darkness. With eyes like that, the dark would be afraid of me. With lips like that, the glow of stars would not be shy about hiding their kisses from me but fight to be the first to touch my tongue. With skin so pristinely porcelain, the moon would wince at the thought of attempting to compare in luminescence. 
I press my cheek back against the glass and the coldness of it shatters my face into a million pieces that break through the window and fly like glitter into the night sky. Dad is the glue that holds me together, but while his eyes are on the road and Her judgemental eyes are on me, I’m starting to fall apart. I am not hurting because of the glass but because of the way my face so voluntarily falls into the pavement below the car that my Dad drives. In moonlight that has momentarily come out of hiding, I watch myself as my lungs collapse, my chest convulses, and my palms grow sweaty as I reach a trembling hand to touch it’s deceptive light. It is still too dark out now for my Dad to see that he’s running me over, but maybe when daylight comes, he will see how I am in pieces. Mom couldn’t tell him if she wanted to because her own face has already been lost in the darkness for so many years. If my eyes are looking up at the sky now, I cannot tell because they are too melty. 
So, there I am lying on the ground. I ask myself if I want to pick up all of my glittering pieces or if it is worth it to lay there in a terrible beauty where I am finally able to stretch my legs. When daylight comes and I disappear around the corner of a brick building, the answer feels like an undeniably, unregrettably, unforgettably beautiful woman stepping a heel straight into my heart. I am beautiful.